Sephiroth vs Tifa Lockheart vs Kratos vs Jill Valentine 2008
Results Round Two Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 Stats and Analysis Another year, another Kratos easily advancing in a debated match where his opponent was suffering from SFF. Didn't we have something more important to worry about in this match? <_< Okay, okay - so while being overshadowed by the FAR superior poll going on at the same time as it, this was a pretty interesting match to follow. Kratos had put any murmurs of Ocelot upsetting him to rest by killing his fourpack (not that he needed to, thanks Jill), but Tifa had shocked the world by holding up to Seph better than anyone could have predicted. She was back in this thing, although there was one little problem here - Tifa had two VERY big assists helping her out in the last round, and being the face shot round she was more or less going to have to go on how *snicker* likable people found her. Secondly, instead of having an old man hanging on to Kratos' coattails, the unpredictable Jill Valentine was there. And having another lovely lady of the PSX certainly wasn't going to do Tifa any favors. And finally... it's Sephiroth. Who wants to rely on him doing the same thing twice? So past became prologue - Kratos sealed the fate the match's results as soon as he put up anything resembling a fight during the board vote. Tifa kept him within reach as best she could, and even ended up taking the lead briefly thanks to her killer night vote... but this is Kratos we're talking about. The casual day and ASV vote he feasts on is always a sight to behold, and a close match became a 5500 vote loss by the time everything was said and done. All in all it was a pretty standard result, though while it couldn't really tell us anything about the characters specifically it all but shut the door on Auron pulling a second miracle next round - Tifa needed to perform excellently (while still barely losing to Kratos) in order to give the upset any kind of hope. Instead, she got pushed over by Kratos while he got his face kicked in by Sephy. And while Sephiroth was no Cloud, Sonic, for his part, was no Ryu. (yet) And with that, we had the end of the second round! A good end match, the announcement of free-form pictures for the third round (aw yeah Snake), and Indiana going blue for the first time since 1964 were only a few of the highlights we got to enjoy on just that day alone. What could be better? Well, the easiest answer was what we learned the end of a round always gives way to: more Zack Attack! Match Trends Ngamer's Same Day Analysis Match Prediction Alright, on to the last battle of the round. This one's got great potential! X-Stats from Round One * Sephiroth - 28.80% (based on '07 Ratchet) * Tifa - 21.67% (based on '07 Ratchet) * Kratos - 25.62% (based on '07 Ocelot) * Jill - 20.94% (based on '07 Ocelot) No time to discuss these stats! Why such potential? Well, if Seph once again forgets that he's 1/3 of Clinkeroth and barely hurts a character from his own game with SFF like we saw in R1, there's a very real possibility of Tifa advancing. However, if that realization suddenly dawns on him and he destroys Tifa like he ought to (and like he DID do to Vincent back in '07), then there's a very real possibility that Jill REFAQses her way past her into third. So the question of the match is, which Sephiroth will show up? Personally I'm banking on the later. Ratchet and Nana were horrible competition no matter how you look at it; Kratos and Jill aren't exactly Mario and Link, but they're at least decent options and so I'm expecting trends to return moreso to what we witnessed in the poll where VV got owned. Even so, I see the final percentages here being something where even though Tifa looks pretty bad, Seph doesn't exactly come out looking good, just on account of how his doing so would make some kind of sense, and Sephiroth doesn't roll that way. Sooo, does this mean Jill will be able to catch up to Tifa? Nay, sorry, still don't see it. She and Leon and Chris have already done more than enough to distinguish themselves this season by going well beyond our expectations; should be fun to see them in action again in '09, assuming RE5 is as big a hit as many are predicting. If Jill were a bigger Day Vote threat I'd have to consider the upset more seriously, but as is I can't see her making a real game of it. That leaves us with Kratos, who frankly I'm fairly hesitant to put much faith in... Sure he looked good in R1, but I get the impression that he's one of those guys like Hayabusa or Altair or (apparently) Mewtwo- capable of soaking up enough casual indifference vote to wow us in the early rounds, but who voters will abandon in droves as soon as other legit options are delivered. Plus if there's one thing that's sure to hurt a Playstation star it's the introduction of a compelling Final Fantasy 7 option. But... eh, I still see him doing well enough in the day to put this advancement out of Tifa's reach. Plus he's sporting full-on Banner Factor in that pic, which never hurts! So Seph >>> Kratos > Tifa > Jill, which if stirred in a pot for five minutes will result in something along the lines of * Sephiroth - 38.06% * Kratos (God of War) - 24.71% * Tifa Lockheart - 20.68% * Jill Valentine - 16.55% Hmm, that's a decent bit of Jill faith. Come on REFAQs, pull this out for me! Ngamer Says: Sephiroth > Kratos Next Day Review This ended up being pretty well-timed... not much to keep an eye on in this match (aside from Tifa taking the lead for a brief while during Europe's voting, but we all knew that wouldn't last), but that was just fine because we had that OTHER popularity poll to follow along with tonight. Just quickly I'll say that I'm a little miffed at Jill for not maintaining more of her base, but ah well, still a great season for her regardless. And I'm also miffed at Seph for not doing what I expected, and instead performing up to expectations. Arg, even when I bet against common sense in the hopes of nailing down his unpredictable nature I still can't peg him! External Links * Match Updates * Guru Match Predictions * Oracle Match Results • Previous Match • Next Match Category:2008 Contest Matches